I now have GhostScript installed and so tried it myself using the first file that I generated for this set of placemats. (I sent a different file to my friend based off a known-to-be-good version from the FTLOP 1985 Horizontal in January.)

Glenn: are you able to update your GhostScript to the latest? Please would you be willing to /InlineTitlesAttemptMinimiseNumContours true def, and test whether new GhostScript is still painfully slow? Thank you.

I now have GhostScript installed and so tried it myself using the first file that I generated for this set of placemats. (I sent a different file to my friend based off a known-to-be-good version from the FTLOP 1985 Horizontal in January.)

Glenn: are you able to update your GhostScript to the latest? Please would you be willing to /InlineTitlesAttemptMinimiseNumContours true def, and test whether new GhostScript is still painfully slow? Thank you.

This is not urgent.

Edit: also /InlineTitlesMaxNumberContours 20 def.

I don't believe that I have GhostScript installed on my current computer. I have gone back to using ps2pdf.com because you fixed the issue that was causing that website to fail.

This is the text of a bug report re Mac Preview 10.0 (944.4) under macOS High Sierra 10.13.3. Please suggest improvements: whatever makes it more likely to be fixed.

Mac Preview mis-displays PDF files. Both setlinewidth and clip'ping regions are seriously mis-displayed, which is most inconvenient for those using macOS to produce beautiful files.

A PDF file has been made from the hand-written PostScript file at www.jdawiseman.com/papers/bugs/201803_P ... lip_bug.ps
Because this is handwritten, it can be read and understood by a human, who can then see what it is meant to do, and compare to what actually happens.

The PostScript was opened in Mac Preview 10.0 (944.4) under macOS High Sierra 10.13.3, and at 1200* screenshotted to make
Observe error: red stroke of the (S) is much thinner than it should be.

The distilled PDF was opened in Mac Preview 10.0 (944.4) under macOS High Sierra 10.13.3, and at 1200* screenshotted to make
Two errors: red stroke of the (S) is much thinner than it should be. Also the painting of the triangle clipped to the (S) is not correctly clipped: some green and black spills out of the S.

The same distilled was PDF opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2018.011.20038, and at 1200* screenshotted to make
This shows correctly.

Click on “Wine of the Night? (p37, A4)”. The black focus jumps from there up a few lines. Click on “What is it? (p39, A4)”. Again focus jumps.

In a previous version of Preview (no, I don't know precisely, but about two OS's ago) one could navigate through the Table of Contents using up and down arrows. Attempt same. Observe jumping about. This user interface isn't working.

This is the text of a bug report re Mac Preview 10.0 (944.4) under macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

mark {Catalog} << /PageLayout /TwoPageLeft >> /PUT pdfmark
This PostScript command, which is echoed in the PDF, causes a two page layout in which the first page is not shown by itself. Two pages, without title page. Heeded by Adobe reader; ignored by Preview.

In the above, the 1963 over Ck and Mz are clearly smaller than those over G and D; perhaps some form of proportion since the Mz and Ck are in a smaller font than G and D (being maximised to fit within circles), but it would look better if all the 1963s were the same size font. I don't know how the font size decision for the over-print of the year was determined (I haven't looked, to be fair); perhaps some additional form of control might already provide the capability to enforce a common font size for the 1963s since they are all the same and in the same size area, but if not then perhaps it might be a worthwhile addition.

PhilW wrote:In the above, the 1963 over Ck and Mz are clearly smaller than those over G and D; perhaps some form of proportion since the Mz and Ck are in a smaller font than G and D (being maximised to fit within circles), but it would look better if all the 1963s were the same size font. I don't know how the font size decision for the over-print of the year was determined (I haven't looked, to be fair); perhaps some additional form of control might already provide the capability to enforce a common font size for the 1963s since they are all the same and in the same size area, but if not then perhaps it might be a worthwhile addition.

It was wrong. I will investigate whether it was a user error or a programmer failure (same person; different roles) and suggest a plan, or just effect it.

A reminder: if font sizes are closer in ratio than FontSizesRatioAboveBelowOverMin (or, mutatis mutandis, FontSizesRatioTitlesMin, then they are set to be the same. It is, in ratio terms, the minimum difference in font size. These two parameters prevent there being many font sizes that differ only slightly.

Advice wanted on a technical problem, relating to the seed for PostScript’s random numbers, the seed being set with srand.

To fix some bugs and refactor code, each circle’s painting is surrounded by a rrand … srand pair, to put in the stack the current seed, and then to reset the random-number seed to that.

Discussion is happening about a forthcoming Cockburn vertical. The current draft of the placemats has the 1947 and 1967 as:

Observe that the layout of the stars look very similar, with a slight offset. (The eye might start at the top-right of the ‘7’s.) Indeed, relative to the centre of the circle, the stars are identically positioned. Is this:
• Perfection?
• Tolerable?
• Erroneous?

Observe that the layout of the stars look very similar, with a slight offset. (The eye might start at the top-right of the ‘7’s.) Indeed, relative to the centre of the circle, the stars are identically positioned. Is this:
• Perfection?
• Tolerable?
• Erroneous?

Tolerable, though less than ideal. Why do you keep get/setting the seed, rather than simply setting it at the start of the script (presumably to a fixed value for determinism) and then just using rand throughout thereafter?

Why do you keep get/setting the seed, rather than simply setting it at the start of the script (presumably to a fixed value for determinism) and then just using rand throughout thereafter?

Because sometimes multiple passes of randomness need to be aligned.

"need"? no. "want"? perhaps - I would likely have compromised this one, and not chosen alignment for this, unless it turned out to look poor. With your chosen method you still should only need to cache and reseed while drawing the multiple aspects of a single circle, then continue (though this would place restrictions on the order in which you need to draw elements, or increase the seed cache-ing to one per circle, and then restore to subsequent afterwards, which might be the better route, depending on the currently implemented order of drawing of elements.

With your chosen method you still should only need to cache and reseed while drawing the multiple aspects of a single circle, then continue (though this would place restrictions on the order in which you need to draw elements, or increase the seed cache-ing to one per circle, and then restore to subsequent afterwards, which might be the better route, depending on the currently implemented order of drawing of elements.

Yes. And my question was whether I should. And the answers seems to be ‘yes’.

I actually noticed the non-randomness of the 47 and 67 with merely a glance before reading the rest of the original post.

That said, I don't see it as a problem.

(The overtitles example looks bad to me, and not due to alignment. I would not put the pattern in the overtitle as it makes that word too difficult to read. Especially in the busy parts in 'pe' and 'ia'.)

Julian - Thomas V over on FTLOP has posted that the ps to pdf converter seems to no longer function with a placemat .ps file. Any ideas what's happened? I suspect the converter is doing something different and doesn't like something in the .ps file. The converter at www.ps2pdf.com also seems to have stopped giving a log which is a bit unhelpful for figuring out the issue.

I'm not even sure how your email made it to me as the new owner should be receiving email for the dot com domain but perhaps has not updated something.

When I take the document and convert it at ps2pdf.org it does produce a document.
This document also causes my security wrapper to generate a pile of output as this file includes a bunch of code in it that causes the converter to block certain transactions that the file is trying to do. It still creates a final pdf .

(The overtitles example looks bad to me, and not due to alignment. I would not put the pattern in the overtitle as it makes that word too difficult to read. Especially in the busy parts in 'pe' and 'ia'.)

I agree with this, the pattern in the over label is completely distracting when placed over the vintage stars.

The vintage stars themselves I find a little too cluttered for the overall appearance that I'm distracted with the fill and not the vintage date itself.